The Drumcree marching dispute in Portadown could be reignited after the
Parades Commission this week stunned nationalist residents by initially
permitting an Orange march on the lower end of the Garvaghy Road, the
scene of some of the North’s most intense parades violence, before
changing its mind.

While the decision was almost immediately rescinded amid an outcry, the
commission appeared to continue to vacillate. Local unionist MP David
Simpson said he was told at a meeting with the newly-appointed
commission that the march remains “under review”.

Nationalists living on the Garvaghy Road have called on the PSNI to
enforce the decision amid fears that an attempt to hold an inflammatory
sectarian march by the “back door” will go ahead regardless this
Saturday, June 28th.

Attempts by the anti-Catholic Orange Order to march through the Catholic
enclave every July in the late 1990s saw conflagrations which often
reached across the north of Ireland, and were linked to a number of
loyalist killings at that time. The tensions were only defused in 1998
when the parade from Drumcree church began to be consistently rerouted
away from the nationalist area.

Members of the Orange Order are now seeking to walk along a section of
the lower Garvaghy Road to mark the “dedication and unfurling” of a
refurbished ‘Orange Arch’, a structure constructed over the thoroughfare
and their largest official emblem of the marching season.

After initially being given the go-ahead, the Parades Commission did a
U-turn and eventually banned the sectarian display -- but there are
fears the PSNI may still turn a blind eye, despite a recent court
judgment requiring them to enforce such parade decisions.

Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition spokesman Breandan MacCionnaith said
local people would be monitoring the situation.

“We said to people at a public meeting if the review decision stands
people should not go towards the interface area at all,” he said. “They
should go and watch the Armagh match on TV.

“A lot of it will boil down to how loyalists are policed by the cops.
The cops have a duty to enforce the determination and there should be
no-one associated with the parade or arch permitted near the Garvaghy
Road [this Saturday evening].”

Adding to local concerns is the fact that many foreign nationals live in
the interface area at the bottom of the Garvaghy Road known as Victoria
Terrace. Threats to foreign workers, particularly to the North’s largely
Catholic Polish community, have been a significant feature of this
year’s marching season.

Polish flags have appeared on loyalist bonfires and two Polish men
suffered a racist attack close to a loyalist bonfire site in Lisburn
last weekend. The bonfires are due to be set ablaze on July 11th, the
eve of the height of the marching season the ‘Twelfth’, which
commemorates a famous 17th century Protestant battle victory over
Catholics.

Loyalist flags glorifying the ultra-right British National Party and the
openly racist English MP Enoch Powell have also begun appearing in west
Belfast. One such flag, which carries the words “Enoch Powell was right”
was put up close to one bonfire site. The flag is understood to be a
reference to Powell’s infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech warning of
racial conflict. Elsewhere, intimidatory flags have begun appearing
outside Catholic churches in County Antrim.

TALKS

Tensions are also building in north Belfast after a nationalist
residents group said it had been excluded from dialogue organised by
local churchmen to deal with loyalist demands for an Orange parade on
the Twelfth through the nationalist areas of Ardoyne, Mountainview and
The Dales.

Announcing multi-party talks due to begin at Stormont on Wednesday,
British Direct Ruler Theresa Villiers said she was most concerned at the
situation in north Belfast which she said was “volatile”. She said the
ongoing loyalist ‘protest camp’ at the interface with the Twaddell Road
had made things “extremely difficult”.

All sides should accept the decision of the Parades Commission regarding
this year’s parade, she said: “The crucial thing is that whatever their
determination is that it is respected”.

Nationalist residents spokesman Dee Fennell said attempts to exclude his
more hardline Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective (GARC) from talks to
resolve the dispute were “disappointing and unhelpful”.

Pointing to loyalist calls for all stakeholders to be included in the
talks, he said that it was not “appropriate to exclude a legitimate
residents’ group in the area from any process that would hopefully end
sectarian parades through this area”.